Heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are used extensively in residential and commercial installations. Some such systems include a fresh air ventilator that provides a means to replace a portion of stale air within a building being heated or cooled with fresh air from outside the building. While such ventilation provides the ability to maintain indoor air quality, the venting of heated or cooled air to the outside represents a potential loss of energy used to condition the vented air.
In an effort to improve the economy of operating such systems, energy may be transferred between an incoming fresh airstream and a vented airstream by use of an enthalpy wheel. A typical enthalpy wheel includes a medium that can store and release heat, and may also store and release moisture. Thus, for example, when a building is being heated, heat from a vented airstream may be transferred to an incoming cold fresh airstream, thereby recovering a portion of the energy that would otherwise be lost to the outside environment.
While providing increased efficiency, an enthalpy wheel may in some circumstances become clogged with, e.g. dirt or frost. Such clogging may result in a maintenance nuisance and increased cost to the operator from system down time and removing the blockage.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is a solution to enthalpy wheel blockage that reduces the burden on the operator and decreases HVAC system down time.